What role has food played in human societies? Studying the production and consumption of food allows historians to uncover hidden levels of meaning in social relationships, understand demographic shifts, and trace cultural exchange.

How did the many paths of human migration people the planet? From their origins on the African continent, humans have spread across the globe. This unit explores how and why early humans moved across Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas, based on recent studies in archaeology and linguistics.

What tools do world historians use in the study of history? This unit begins the study of world history by examining its use of geographical and chronological frameworks: how they have shaped the understanding of world history and been used to chart the past.

How were land-based trade routes conduits of both commerce and culture? The Eurasian Silk Roads, the trans-Saharan Gold Roads, and the Meso-American Turquoise Roads trace the transmission of commodities, religions, and diseases, as well as the movements of people.

How were water routes used as conduits of expansion and trade? The traders of the Indian Ocean, the early Mississippians, and the Norsemen carried death and disease, skills and technologies, philosophies and religion down rivers and across oceans.

How do societies assign value to land, labor, and material goods? A comparison of manorial economies in Japan and medieval Europe is contrasted with the tribute economy of the Inka, and the experience of dramatic economic change is illustrated by the commercial revolution in China.

What makes an "empire"? Through the Mongol empire, the Mali empire, and the Inka empire, this unit examines the construction of empires, their administrative structures, legitimating ideologies, and the environmental and technological conditions that shaped them.